


competing for the title of worst personality

by heartsinhay



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinhay/pseuds/heartsinhay
Summary: “That’s why you’re in there. And I’m not. I’ll never be,” Ymir said. She was shaking, she realized, distantly, little spasms of her shoulders that threatened to flick soot and bits of torch onto her good boots. Her teeth caressed the knuckle of her thumb, ready but yet unwilling to bite down. Maybe a Titan could claw Annie out of her prison, but Ymir wasn’t about to try.5 + 1 things Annie and Ymir had in common.





	competing for the title of worst personality

  1. _they only had one friend_



Annie was there the day Mina and Christa came to invite Ymir to go down to the well with them and the rest of the girls. Technically, they only needed one person to ask, but Ymir figured that Christa had tagged along for solidarity, or support. It seemed like the kind of thing she would do.

Or—No, she thought, looking at the way she stood slightly behind Mina, posture just a little bit more refined, silent as the other girl spoke. No, it wasn’t solidarity. It was like coming to ask them along had been Christa’s idea in the first place, and she’d somehow talked Mina into taking the risk of Ymir’s dislike. 

“It’s only,” Mina said, glancing at the floorboards for a moment, then forging onwards, “It’s only that you haven’t bonded much with any of the other girls since training started, and we thought we could get to know you better. Annie, you can come too.”

She ended with a generous smile in Annie’s direction and a little bob of her head, like the top half of the curtsies nobody except Ymir remembered anymore. Annie, who’d crawled back onto her bunk and after morning inspection ended and hadn’t moved since, turned away in response, faking an unconvincing cough.

“Sorry,” she said, though her voice was far from apologetic, “I’m feeling too sick to go anywhere. I have a frail constitution, you know. My body has a woman’s pains.”

She coughed again, her symptoms incongruous with her excuse, and Mina turned imploringly, once again, to Ymir.

“What about you? We could—“

“Is this because you pity me? Are you asking me because you think I don’t have any friends?”

Mina faltered a little at that. She was a nice girl with good intentions, and probably didn’t deserve Ymir and Annie acting otherwise, though neither could bring themselves to care. Christa, on the other hand… Before she fixed her mouth back into a smile, Ymir thought she could see a flash of some odd emotion on her face: not annoyance, exactly, or nervousness, but something strange and completely blank.

“I’m your friend,” Christa said, “I mean—we haven’t known each other for long, and I don’t know you as well as I’d like to, Ymir, but we’re all teammates, after all. I’d like to think of myself as your friend, if you want me to be, of course. And that’s why we’re inviting you.”

It was like Christa to cast herself, defenseless, onto the bosom of the difficult, snappish trainee with the least team spirit. Such a selfless girl, to try and see the good in assholes like Ymir. She could almost see the stars in Mina’s eyes. The ploy wouldn’t backfire on her, either: if Ymir rejected her, she’d be good-hearted even when spurned by the ungrateful, nobly trying to connect with those who’d alienate her, and if Ymir accepted any of her offers, then she’d be so good that she could even tame the most unsociable of souls, with even formerly tetchy trainees like Ymir entering her orbit. It almost worked, too. Even Ymir, who knew how little Christa actually meant  _ think of myself as your friend _ , was softening.

“Annie, too,” she continued, and to Ymir, at least, the effect was broken.

“Not this time,” she said, “I’m feeling sick, too. I think Annie’s womanly frailty might be infectious.” She coughed, twice, and made a show of swooning back onto her bunk.

“Then I’ll stay,” Christa replied, “You go on, Mina. I’ll make sure Ymir and Annie are alright.”

Ymir snorted and stared at the ceiling. It was too hot in the room, too stifling. It almost made her feel sick for real. There was special training in a week: drills and long treks in the icy mountains. Ymir thought she might sign up. It would be good to have some cold for a change, and, besides, knowing Christa, she’d be there too.

 

  1. _they fought with mikasa ackerman_



The ground felt like Titan spit when Ymir slammed back into it: hard as diamonds and really fucking gross. Mikasa, irritatingly, stood perfect and inviolate, silhouetted against the sky, her knuckles barely bloodied by—by whatever that move she just pulled was.

“This won’t impress Christa, you know,” she said, with the perfect serenity of someone who’d essentially moved in with  _ her _ crush. Ymir glared up at her as she gasped for breath and took inventory of her injuries.  Ribs: still hurting. Leg muscles: still cramped from yesterday’s run. Left ankle: beginning to steam a little. She’d have to learn how to cover that up somehow. Maybe pick up a smoking habit. She should be flattered, she supposed, that she was good enough to make Mikasa stop holding back.

“How,” she started, rolling back onto her elbows so she could look at least a bit nonchalant as she waited for her ankle to heal,  “I mean, why’d you think I want to impress our lady saint and martyr over there?”

“Ymir,” said Mikasa, and, yeah, Ymir could see why that was a stupid question. Mikasa didn’t even try to say why.

“She’d be more impressed,” Mikasa continued, “If you’d tried to talk to her.”

Easier said than done. Every time Ymir looked at Christa, all she could think of was that stupid mountain and Daz’s weight against her too-large shoulders. Did she know? Did Ymir want her to know? She was torn between wanting Christa to see through her, to call her as fake as Ymir called Christa herself, and wanting nobody to ever find out. Of course, it wasn’t like Ymir was about to tell Mikasa, Eren “Kill All Titans” Jaeger’s childhood friend, anything, so she went on the offensive instead.

“Like your love life’s doing any better,” she said, mustering up a smirk, “Hey, has Jaeger noticed you’ve grown tits yet? Because—“

She was interrupted by a smack on the back of her head.

“Ow—fuck—“

How’d Mikasa even get back there? Last thing Ymir knew, she was standing in front of her, as cool as Shadis liked to pretend to be at the height of noon, and—Ymir looked up, and saw blonde.

Oh. Not Mikasa. Christa. She should… She had to… Ymir swallowed, stupidly, and smiled.

“Hey.”

“I’m tending your wounds,” announced Christa, shortly, holding up the bandages clutched in her fist as proof.

“You’re surprisingly violent, you know, Christa. Have you ever thought about, ah. About joining the military?”

Ymir was intensely conscious of how awful she sounded, throat parched because of the cut water rations from the last time she’d tried to make a smart-ass remark, but Christa was right there, wrapping cloth around Ymir’s aching ribs and peering at the scrapes on Ymir’s knee. She scrubbed them hard, with alcohol, but Ymir couldn’t help but smile past the sting.

 

  1. _they shut themselves outside_



“Not going to town, huh, Annie?”

The barracks were sweltering again. Ymir wasn’t even sure if the windows actually worked. They were screwed shut anyway, and locked, ostensibly to prevent recruits from going soft but most likely actually to prevent Connie and Sasha from trying to steal the panes again. At least the lights hadn’t been lit, and, in a concession to the season, Mikasa had wedged a rock into the doorway to keep it open.

Still, despite the heat, Ymir and Annie remained in full uniform, inside this musty room and not down by the lake or trying on new ribbons like all the other members of the 104 th . Ymir was still in there because she couldn’t stand going to town with Christa, a gaggle of hangers-on from other squads jostling for her attention, stopping to speak to every wizened old farmer or snot-nosed child that crossed their path. She wasn’t sure about Annie. Sick again, maybe, with the same old womanly frailty that struck her down, like clockwork, whenever anyone asked her to do something.

“Eren would take you,” Ymir said, idly, “If you asked him. You’d have to share him with the other two brats, and Mikasa’d probably try to get you to have another rematch, but you could all go together. It wouldn’t be so bad.”

She watched Annie out of the corner of her eye, speaking without properly looking at her face. They were both good at that, faking nonchalant. Ymir felt like Mikasa herself, dispensing advice where nobody really needed it like the interfering mother half the squad didn’t have, except nobody really expected Ymir to care.

“I don’t want to go,” Annie replied, and, when Ymir didn’t call bullshit, elaborated, “It’s better.”

“Better if what?”

“Better if people like us didn’t get too close to them.”

Ymir could feel Annie’s eyes on her, cataloging every minor betraying twitch of her face. She forced herself to relax, keep her eyes bored and half-lidded and her sprawl loose and easy.

“People like us? What do you mean? The ones who’re going to make top ten? Unfriendly bitches? Losers with no social lives? Well, that last one’s just you, don’t you think?” drawled Ymir, her voice as light as her heart didn’t feel. Annie’s expression didn’t betray any reaction, either, not even annoyance. Her face was worse than ice: it was as still as if it had been carved into stone. Annie was a sly one, enough to escape everyone else’s notice more often than not. Was she like Ymir? Did she know?

Someone pushed the door open, the blast of cooler air a sudden relief.

“Watch the rock,” Ymir said, idly, not turning to look at the person who’d just entered, “It’s too hot to get up to move it, and Mikasa’s all the way downtown.”

“You could always move it yourself, you know.”

Christa. That warranted sitting up. Ymir levered herself upward to lean against her bedpost, shaking the hair out of her eyes as she did.

“Thought you were going to town.”

Christa didn’t even check if anyone was watching before she replied. Her façade wasn’t as calculating as Ymir’s: She was seamless, perfect even when nobody was looking, like she always knew the best way to fake being human.

“You were alone up here,” she said, simply, and that, at least, made Ymir forget all about Annie’s answer. It’s not like she was going to give it, anyway, or like Ymir was going to listen. Not now, not while Christa was here. 

 

  1. _they were left behind_



“Fuck.”

The cold air hit her like the flat of a blade, and for a moment Ymir thought that she might bruise from it. She curled further around her steaming bowl of soup and sat down gingerly, pretending that she wasn’t leaning against the door just to steal a little bit of warmth. It’d probably be smarter if she went back into the cafeteria, but she wouldn’t let herself. She was tough, wasn’t she? She’d survived on the streets for nearly a year with nothing to her name.

She looked to her left and almost jumped: Annie, as expressionless as the blank-faced soldiers printed in their training manuals, sat unmoving on the edge of the porch, her hood pulled up over her hair. So this was where she disappeared to. Stupid move, especially in winter, but if Annie really hated everyone so much that she’d sit out in the freezing cold rather than eat next to them, few people would notice long enough to care.

“It’s cold out,” Ymir said, more to prove that she hadn’t been surprised than anything else. Annie turned her head only fractionally, looking at Ymir out of the corner of her eye for a single moment before lowering her eyes to the creaky floorboards, only recently scraped clean of snow.

“Doesn’t bother me,” she said, and Ymir couldn’t help but resent her for it.

Fuck, it really was cold, but going back inside would be even worse. Ymir resisted the urge to curl up and extended her legs in a lazy sprawl. If Annie wanted to pretend to be tough, then two could play at that game, though Ymir had the sinking feeling that if it was a contest of endurance, she’d lose. The trainees called Annie the Ice Queen, after all, mostly because they weren’t original enough to think of a better nickname, and Ymir nothing but “Christa’s friend”.

“Christa’s inside,” Annie offered, almost like she knew exactly what Ymir was thinking. She couldn’t help but bristle, first at the implication that she’d drop everything and head indoors once someone told that Christa was, and then, after the guilty realization that she normally most likely would, at the implication that Christa could be in the same place Ymir was without her noticing.

She looked at Annie, considering, and decided to say it anyway. Wasn’t like Annie, with her distinct lack of a sparkling social life, could judge, and since the whole barracks had seen, it wouldn’t be long until she found out, anyway.

“We had a fight,” she said, gruffly, and leaned her head backwards against the door to keep herself from looking for Annie’s reaction. None came, though. Typical Annie, acting like she was too good to respond. Whatever. It wasn’t like Ymir cared about what she thought, or what anyone thought. Not even Christa.

The silence stretched on, and then, out of the darkness and the sharp cold came Annie’s voice.

“I didn’t know Christa fought.”

“She fights dirty,” Ymir replied, shortly, and didn’t volunteer anything else. They knew how to hurt each other, she’d realized. She’d always prided herself on being opaque, and Christa wasn’t the sort who showed any kind of weakness other than virtue taken to excess, but somewhere along the line both of them’d learned the best insults to hurl, words that burrowed into the chinks in their armor and made them bleed.

“Mm,” said Annie, and they were silent once more. Ymir picked at her soup, gone cold from the mere minutes spent outside. It felt like sipping at ice. The wilted lettuce was extra limp today, and even the smattering of cheap pepper the cooks poured into the broth under the delusion that it could convince the trainees that they were drinking more than boiled water with a few leaves tossed in failed to taste like anything. Ymir sighed, and decided to just drink the whole thing in a single gulp. If she left it alone any longer, it’d probably freeze over.

She lifted the bowl to her lips, slurping at the dregs, and was in the middle of gulping it all down when the door opened with a bang and knocked Ymir sideways.

“Ow—shit—“ Ymir coughed, spitting half her soup onto the porch. She twisted her body so she could glare at the asshole who’d opened the door, squinting against the light.

“You’re the worst, Ymir,” said Christa Lenz, her golden hair glinting, heralded by a rush of warm air. Like a saint, anyone else would say, haloed by the warm torchlight of the cafeteria. To Ymir, though, Christa never looked like anything other than herself.

“Yeah,” replied Ymir, with her usual eloquence, “I know.” Her mouth was dry. There was a feeling like something wrapped around her heart, squeezing almost painfully every time she glanced up at Christa’s eyes. She was pretty sure some soup’d gone up her nose, but even more sure that she didn’t care. Stuff tasted like shit, anyway.

“I mean it,” Christa continued, “You’re a jerk, and mean to everyone, and—and—Come in here, it’s cold outside.”

She extended her hand, and Ymir took it. The warmth from the open door had gone a long way towards easing what little anger she still held on to, and when Christa cooled down and apologized, Ymir had every intention of taking advantage. 

Christa had to lean forward into the cold to tug Ymir up. She jumped a little in surprise halfway through, but not enough to unbalance them, something Ymir would never admit she was grateful for. 

“Annie—“ she said, but Annie interrupted her.

“Don’t start. I’m fine outside.”

“But—“ Christa tried again, but this time Ymir decided to interrupt. She could be generous, just this once. She’d call Christa off, and let Annie have her peace and gratitude and Ymir and Christa theirs.

“Let her be,” Ymir advised, “Didn’t you hear her? She likes it out there.” Christa wavered, door still half-open and letting all the cold air in. Anyone other than Christa would’ve been yelled at minutes ago, and even the beloved Christa didn’t have much time left before the people sitting near the door started to complain. Ymir summoned up the gentlest version of her smirk she could manage, and used her trump card.

“Come on. Don’t want to force anyone into anything, do you?”

“No,” said Christa, reluctantly, “Stay warm, though, all right, Annie?”

She leaned forward and pulled, the door slamming closed behind them.

 

  1. _they were furtive monsters_



The basement where they kept Annie was dark, the flicker of Ymir’s torch and Abbas’s behind her the only light in the room. It felt wrong, more sinister because of the grey shadows of the underground, the columns that kept the like Titans’ spines in the darkness. Ymir walked with her hand near her teeth, stroking her chin idly with a thumb. Abbas probably thought that she had a nervous tic, or was covering up a pimple or picking at her teeth. Whatever. If she cared about his opinion, she wouldn’t have blackmailed him into letting her down here during his watch.

The others of the 104 th had tried to see Annie, Reiner making a speech about duty to the crown and the sting of betrayal and all that bullshit, a strategy that failed to hold water with the unsentimental Captain Levi and Eren with his usual idealistic yelling, which held even less muster, and earned him extra latrine duty, humanity’s hope or not. Christa had just asked. Sometimes it was because they wanted to bid a touching goodbye to their beloved comrade, or because they had to see her to really believe that she was a Titan, but the result was still the same.

Ymir, out of all the trainees, was the only one either smart or twisted enough to steal a glance at Captain Hanji’s desk when she was sent to interrupt her from her experiments, and certainly the only one who noticed that Private Abbas, who disappeared to a classified location for three hours every week, drafting a love letter to Adelina Bodner’s dreamy eyes and perfect Titan-killing form . She wasn’t like Reiner, who tried because of sentiment, or Eren, who tried because of stupidity. Ymir was here for a reason.

It was hard to remember that, though, with the drip of water into a far corner of the room through the boards of the ceiling and the uncertain shape of the tarp draped over Annie’s crystal. Buildings these days were so flimsy, all wooden boards and small stones. Even though Ymir had gotten used to the creak of dead tree under her shoes, a ceiling that let water into Annie’s prison seemed unsafe. At least they had the tarp to keep water from falling onto her crystal, and bars all around that tarp.

Abbas drew the tarp away, but locked the door when he came out and settled against the wall, close enough that the light of his torch mingled with the light from Ymir’s but far away enough that, if Ymir spoke very quietly, he wouldn’t be able to listen to what she said.

She knocked on the bars, hoping that Annie was listening. It was a nice thought: Annie, awake, in the darkness, trapped in the crystal for years and years and years, but horrible at the same time. She’d better be listening. Ymir had something to say.

“You were wrong,” she said, quietly, her torch shining on the empty-eyed girl stuck in crystal like liquer encased in a chocolate shell, “About getting close to people. You should’ve let Eren take you to town. Found someone to live for.”

Annie’s face remained impassive, eyes still as hooded as her shirt. That was how you knew that Annie wasn’t listening to you (other than by noticing that she didn’t listen to anyone). Her hood went up and eyelids went down, and even if you were stuck mid-rant or trying to confide in her about romantic troubles, as Mina made the mistake of doing once and only once, you knew she wasn’t going to respond even if you screamed.

The crystal was like her hood going up. No matter how anyone screamed, and no matter how many blades or bonfires they wasted trying to crack it, Annie was staying inside, still and silent as a bone in its grave. Just as well, too. If she wasn’t going to move, she was going to listen.

“That’s why you’re in there. And I’m not. I’ll never be,” Ymir said. She was shaking, she realized, distantly, little spasms of her shoulders that threatened to flick soot and bits of torch onto her good boots. Her teeth caressed the knuckle of her thumb, ready but yet unwilling to bite down. Maybe a Titan could claw Annie out of her prison, the acid of its stomach eating into its stone, but Ymir wasn’t about to try.

“Point is, Annie. Don’t you dare come out.”

The firelight danced across the jagged surface of the crystal, distorting Annie’s features. With Abbas’s flame in the backgrounds, a certain shadow was cast across her face. It looked something like a laugh.

  
  
  


+1.          _ they betrayed for an uncertain cause _

 

Reiner and Bertholdt had set up camp under the tallest tree, the banked fire between the roots casting faint light up into the boughs. They huddled together on a low branch, blades resting in their hands in case an Aberrant learned to climb trees. Ymir, with the second blanket she’d guilted Bertholdt into relinquishing, had tied herself onto an even higher branch with the wires of a 3DMG. She wasn’t worried about Titans, this high up. Falling off was more likely and probably more dangerous.

She shifted, wrapping the second blanket more tightly around her ankles. She wished Christa—Historia was here, with a cool cloth and the promise of a bath. She’d balance precariously on the branch, and yell at Ymir when she jostled it to scare her into thinking they’d fall off, but cling to her anyway. Historia was gone, though. Ymir hoped she was safer inside the walls; safer, and living as herself.

She tried to imagine it—Christa, at the florist’s, at the baker’s, sleeping warm in bed—but her mind inevitably drifted away. Ymir found herself wishing for Annie, suddenly. She’d even give her first blanket away for her. It was supposed to be Annie’s, anyway. Maybe that’s why it was so short.

What would she say to Annie, if she was here? Maybe that she might have been right, about it being better if neither of them had gotten close to anybody. Maybe something about the time she’d convinced Christa to leave her alone,  _ you owe me, Leonhardt,  and you better remember _ . Or maybe that if Ymir was Annie, she would’ve done the exact same things she did as herself, fallen into Christa’s orbit once more, fought with Mikasa and coughed out her soup and brought the whole tower down on everyone’s heads. She didn’t regret one bit. Not any of it. Not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written, like, four years ago. Only a conversation on [anonimanga](https://anonimanga.dreamwidth.org/) reminded me of my affection for these prickly SNK women and convinced me to dig it back up.


End file.
